Doctoral Education in Social Work: What We Know and What We Need to Know (Report‪)‬

Social work is projected to experience occupational growth in the United States in the future, but the current professional workforce and the social work professoriate are "graying" (Lubben, 2006; Whitaker, Weismiller, & Clark, 2006). Meanwhile, the knowledge needs of the profession continue to increase because of rapidly changing international social, economic, and political systems affecting the professions work in the United States and abroad; an increasingly diverse society in the context of voluntary and nonvoluntary global mobility of populations; fragmented, bureaucratized, and underfunded health, behavioral health, and social service delivery systems; more clients, families, and communities coping with multiple, intersecting, and chronic problems in the context of increasing disparities in resources; and mounting demands for the documentation of the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of social work and other health and social welfare services. These challenges require that social work evaluate its future and how it might shape and invest in itself to maintain its relevance, vitality, credibility, and unique contribution among all the helping professions. Because of doctoral-level social workers' leadership in social work education, research, policy, and practice, it is important to understand their roles and contributions within the profession. However, essential questions about current social work doctoral students and graduates remain unanswered: Who are they? What motivates them to pursue doctoral studies? How are they funded? Where are they employed after receiving the doctoral degree? Doctoral education in all fields is a current concern in higher education in the United States, reflected in recent national initiatives on doctoral education by the Council of Graduate Schools and others (DeNeef, 2006) and the Carnegie Foundation (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2006; Golde, Walker, & Associates, 2006). Although in some fields there seems to be an oversupply of doctoral graduates, the concern in social work is that we have too few graduates to meet current faculty needs (Anastas, 2006; Lubben, 2006; Zastrow & Bremner, 2004). In all fields of study, there is concern about a lack of adequate racial and ethnic diversity among those who seek and who earn the doctoral degree. Hence there is debate about whether doctoral education itself should change, and in what ways, to make it more accessible and responsive to current social, scientific, and educational needs, debates that are emerging in social work as well.